The most important goal that managers strive to achieve is to create the right environment that makes employees give their best. The carrot-and-stick method, which relies on motivation by rewarding the hard-working and punishing the negligent and which was followed in the last century, is no longer feasible in the twenty-first century because this method may motivate employees, but it does not push them to give their best. In today’s world of competition, you don’t need people who work hard and actively, but you need people who give their best creativity and initiatives in order to survive in a world of intense competition where you didn’t It is enough to stay in it to be good and even to be the best.

Let each of us ask ourselves: What periods did he feel very excited about the work he was doing? It is the periods when we felt free to reach our goals in a way that activated our own talents and brought out our unique potential. Many controls do not work because they limit people’s ability to use their potential, talents, initiative and creativity. The lack of any controls turns work into chaos, so a third alternative was necessary to protect the work from chaos and at the same time employees feel free to use their talents. This alternative is to make a win-win agreement between the manager and the employee. In the old management style, the tasks required of an employee were determined by a document called a “job description” that showed exactly what the employee should do. This document weakens the dynamics of work as the employee may be able to perform tasks that are useful to work and enjoyable for him and are not found in the job description. The modern management style is based on the so-called “benefit for all agreement” and this agreement has five components:

1. Shared expectations: Where the manager and the employee sit together and agree on the things expected of the employee and record them, and if there is a disagreement between the employee and the manager when determining common expectations, they must look for the third alternatives, that is, those creative solutions that meet the needs of both parties, and if these solutions cannot be reached, the two parties agree on disagreement and each of them goes on his way.
2. Resources: The manager shows the employee the resources he will provide and the assistance he can provide to him to achieve the expectations required of him.
3. Guidelines: These are the standards, laws and general lines within which the employee must move (for example, A salesperson can only give customers discounts of up to 25%.
4. Method of accountability: Many agreements are not implemented because the parties to the agreement did not agree on a way to follow up on implementation. Therefore, an EFA must include a specification of how to follow up (e.g. by telephone or meetings) and the frequency of such follow-up (weekly, monthly, etc.).
5. Consequences: It includes positive consequences in the event of commitment to the agreement and negative consequences in the event of non-compliance with it, and here the positive consequences must be of value to the employee and not to the manager.

A benefit for all agreement removes any misunderstanding between the employee and the manager because it clearly defines what each expects from the other. It also makes the employee more committed to work because this agreement was not imposed on him but he participated in its drafting. The benefit for all agreement should not turn into a dead document lying in drawers, but must remain a living and renewed document to which both parties always return and amend whenever the need arises so that the purpose of this document, which is to empower the employee and unleash his talents and potential, is preserved.

Finally, the mentality of abundance that its owner views life as a flowing spring that is sufficient for everyone, and whose owner considers the success and superiority of others as his success, is the mentality that helps the manager to conclude an agreement that achieves the benefit of all with his employees, A manager who likes to collect powers in his hand and who fears the success and superiority of his employees and considers this a threat to him finds it difficult for him to make such an agreement. This manager will not get the best of their employees, they will only give him what guarantees that they get paid at the end of the month!

Yasser Al-Aiti